Not a Shambles, Not a Work of Art
by Regency
Summary: AU. Once upon a time, they could have had it all together, but they let it slip away. Now, Sam's pretty happy with what they've got, even if it isn't the life she dreamed about. Post-series, SJ.


Author: Regency

Title: Not a Shambles, Not a Work of Art

Pairing: Sam/Jack

Rating: PG

Warnings: angst, sappiness, vague mentions of character death.

Spoilers: the entire series with passing reference to _Atlantis_ and _SGU_; set post-series

Word count: 6,397

Summary: Once upon a time, they could have had it all together, but they let it slip away. Now, Sam's pretty happy with what they've got, even if it isn't the life she dreamed about.

Author's Notes: Always trying to improve, so bring on the constructive criticism.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from _Stargate SG-1_. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

~!~

He was already in her kitchen by the time she woke up. It was a nice kitchen, roomier than the one she'd had when she lived in the Springs so many years ago, but still small enough to be cozy. That was the sort of the thing she was attracted to nowadays, things and places that felt immediately like home without her having to put up any effort.

She was starting to think that trend had started with him.

He leaned against the counter with a steaming mug of coffee in hand as he flipped through some tabloid that he claimed to abhor but secretly loved. His eyebrows rose in proportion to the absurdity of the latest claim; especially, if there were little green—_Gray!,_ he'd grouse—men involved. He wasn't necessarily petty but he was easily annoyed. A few years in Washington had done that to him, tempering his quick tongue but severely limiting his tolerance for idiots.

It was no wonder that he was never in any rush when it came to her then—his words.

She stepped onto the tile floor on socked feet and gratefully accepted the coffee he offered, previously concealed out of sight because he liked her to think he'd forgotten their routine, that somewhere in all his self-involvement she'd gotten left out. She smiled into the first sip, half at the welcome rush of caffeine to her bloodstream, half at him. He never left her out.

"Any good Thor sightings lately," she asked as she hopped onto a stool at the counter in the center of the room.

"Nothing original, no," he sighed melodramatically before shutting the _Enquirer_ and tossing it a middle distance. He always lost interest in it when she came in the room, but she knew it'd be nowhere to be found when it came time for recycling. She had the odd little theory that he kept a scrapbook of these sorts of things, though she'd never tell him that.

"Could be a good thing," she replied, having finally dropped the _sir_ after years of ending and beginning every sentence with it.

"Yeah, I guess," he murmured, giving his coffee his full attention. She didn't miss the slight sadness in his voice as he spoke. _Some losses never heal,_ she thought, knowing there was still a small, largely-ignored part of him that hoped that somehow a few of the Asgard had survived. At least, one in particular.

No one ever would have expected the diminutive gray alien to become the extraterrestrial equivalent of bosom buddies with Jack O'Neill, but he'd managed. For want of an excitable bone in his body and a quirky sense of timing, Thor had become the former colonel's favorite non-humanoid. Sam had never quite understood their relationship, but she had recognized that what had begun as a mutual curiosity had grown into so much more. By the end of his life, there were few beings of any consequence that Jack regarded higher than the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet. Perhaps, she thought, it was because the regard had been mutual that Jack mourned him still.

"So," she began in the hopes of breaking the silence, "what's on the agenda for today?"

He leaned back against the counter across from her and gave an uninformative shrug. "I don't know. Got anything in mind?"

"We could go for a run," she offered with an equally blasé shrug.

He quirked an eyebrow and she didn't miss the tell-tale smirk that tipped his lips. _Sure, we could_, that smirk said,_ but will we?_ She didn't need to read his expression to know the answer to that. While both were far from lazy, they hadn't seen combat in years and field readiness wasn't exactly a priority, so they weren't field ready. For Jack's part, she knew it was harder for him to get up some mornings and the cold ones were the worst. She was always just glad when he made it from his house to her kitchen for coffee.

For Sam's part, she was just tired. She'd worked her body hard and harder for over a decade and a half in pursuit of intergalactic peace. She considered her non-field status to be a reward for all her body had given in that pursuit, for all it had suffered and she along with it. Mostly, she just wanted to avoid listening to it creak as she took off down the porch steps and jogged up the back ones. Sometime between brilliance and accomplishment, she had gotten old.

"So, the run's out," he said, echoing her thoughts in the succinct way he always had. "A movie, then?" She could tell from the way he bounced a bit on the balls of his feet that a movie was exactly what he had in mind. She'd always been a sucker for his eagerness, so she conceded.

"A movie it is. What's out?" She slouched on the stool, curling over her cooling liquid breakfast like eighteen years hadn't passed since Antarctica—the first time—and it was all she could rely on for body heat.

"Oh, I don't know, just a couple of biopics, some cheesy adventure flick, and a godawful dozen chick flicks and children's movies."

She smirked as he grumbled at the state of cinema today. He hated CGI—except _Nemo_, he loved _Nemo_—and he would only sit through romantic comedies with the promise that she'd make him breakfast the morning after. Otherwise, he claimed, he'd feel cheap afterwards. She always rolled her eyes at his antics and gone along with it, knowing he loved the intellectual fluff more than he'd ever admit.

"Something tells me that if I pick anything other than the cheesy adventure flick, you'll complain for two hours and I'll have to buy some poor patron's movie tickets to make up for it."

He wrinkled his brow in a show of guileless confusion. "You say that as though I'm a bother to the other moviegoers. I'm just a member of the audience trying to enjoy the flick. Is it so wrong that I happen to enjoy a more interactive experience?"

She quirked a brow at him in disbelief. Well, not disbelief anymore; they were a cool decade beyond disbelief. "In public? Yes."

"Aww, but annoying folks is half the fun."

She snorted. "Then, maybe we should rent something."

"Then, I'd just be annoying you," he answered with a boyish grin. His eyes twinkled in good fun and she had to shake her head at him. Deep down, there was a part of him that would never age. Secretly, she loved that.

Still, she put down her ceramic mug once it was empty and sent him a level stare. "It'll cost me less and I might actually be able to go back to the rental place afterwards—unlike those times we got thrown out of and _banned_ from two different movie theaters."

He nodded slowly as he took in her logic. "I guess…that makes more sense. I don't think they'll have the movie I want to see though."

She leaned sideways to rest her head on her hand. She was still a bit tired from the SGC's latest crisis, yet she was trying not to show it. _Because, for some reason, he never tired of it all. _"What movie is that," she asked, hoping to get to the heart of things so they could begin the first day of their beloved downtime.

"The _Wormhole Extreme_ movie, _The Big Bad Boat of Truth._"

She nearly started banging her head on the countertop. "Tell me you're not still stuck on that show. I thought that after you watched the entire series box set in a week you'd have it out of your system."

He shrugged with a look of tangible discomfort. "It's crap but it's entertaining crap. Come on, Carter, you know how much entertaining crap…" He waved his hand around in search of the proper phrase.

"—Entertains you?" she offered.

He grinned again, maybe even wider this time. "Yeahsureyoubetcha."

She sighed and scrubbed a hand across her face. "Luckily for you—and possibly the world—that movie was a straight-to-DVD release. We'll pick it up at noon and I'm sure you'll have watched it by nightfall."

He began fidgeting almost immediately and Sam seriously considered giving herself the concussion she'd narrowly foregone a few moments before. _At least it'll mean no more Colonel Danning after this. I'll die if I have to hear him rhapsodizing any harder about the casual nobility of his cause._ She couldn't stand any of the characters, but it was the lead that rubbed her in the worst way. She was aware that he was theoretically supposed to be a facsimile of the former colonel, but she couldn't see it. His arrogance was too plain, his mindset too singular and unyielding to be true career military. Danning wasn't written to bend, but, as any officer knew, sometimes one had to bend to survive. Sam still bent remarkably well and Jack had been damned flexible in his day. The man did a disservice to the very idea of service and to the man whom he sought to emulate.

On a shallower note, she'd simply never found the actor attractive enough. For an average grunt, he was all right. For a man as singularly attractive as Jack O'Neill, the casting director had aimed low and gotten exactly what he was shooting for. His features weren't angular enough, his bone structure was too weak, and his eyes weren't deep enough. He didn't exude sex and commanding in the way that Jack O'Neill had the day she met him and every day after. So he began with everything against him and never caught up.

That didn't mean she wouldn't watch the movie. She always watched the movies, no matter how terrible, just because it meant she got to spend time with her best friend. Jack had done it, and continued to do it, enough for her that it would have been hypocritical to do otherwise. Besides, despite the fact that she'd never had an interest in the original, the show's Daniel, Dr James Lavant, was quite a dish. She'd watch his scenes and fantasize the rest.

She suddenly heard the impatient jingling of keys behind her and was shaken out of her resigned introspection. "Is this your way of telling me to hurry the hell up?"

Jack stuck his head back into the kitchen from the living room. "Of course not. This my way of telling you: Hurry the hell up, Carter!"

Notably, she slowed down instead, taking languishing steps to the sink to rinse out her mug and positively strolling back to her bedroom to make herself presentable to the outside world. Jack knew she hated to be rushed and he'd done it anyway, which meant he could suffer the consequences of his actions.

He was on the couch sulking by the time she returned, fully dressed and more alert than she had been. She passed him with a roll of her eyes and playful ruffling of his silvering hair. It was whiter now than it had been when they left the SGC the first time, but she didn't love it any less. He was, as far as she knew, just glad to still have it. Cropped short and combed forward, it veiled his rising hairline well. He might never be bald, but, as he liked to say, he had a lot more eyebrow room than he remembered having at twenty—or forty.

"Let's get this movie of yours, so we can actually do something worthwhile afterwards."

He huffed, "Like what?" but got up regardless.

"I don't know, Jack, what do attractive people our age do with their free time nowadays?" she asked as she pulled the front door shut behind them.

"Have sleepy, boring sex and watch BBC America until 3 in the morning?"

Sam couldn't stop both her eyebrows from rising at that. "There's nothing wrong with BBC America."

He shrugged as he folded himself into the passenger seat of her new old Volvo. "Didn't say there was. I'm just saying that I think there's a disturbing correlation between increasing age and the increasing amount of BBC television one watches."

Sam huffed herself and drove, refusing to pursue the subject further. She couldn't help it if there was always an episode of _Absolutely Fabulous_ on when he dropped by. She liked that show and liked to think of its constant presence as a good omen. It helped her unwind and reminded her how to laugh when some days she couldn't remember how.

"You know, Carter, I'm more worried about that fact that it was the BBC crack that offended you instead of the one about sex."

"I'm not having any, so there's no reason for cracks about it to offend me." She briefly considered radio but decided against it just as quickly. She wasn't in the mood for the goods on the latest celebrity breakdown to fill her car. What did fill the space was the sound of her good friend chuckling in a disbelieving fashion. She spared him a quick look, just long enough to spy the curve of his mouth and maybe the glint of his teeth in the mid-morning glimmer.

"My lack of a sex life is the funniest joke you've heard all morning, I take it?" She could have been offended, should have been, if only she hadn't grown out of letting his tactlessness get to her, if only Washington hadn't broken him of most of it.

"Only if it's a joke on the universe." She felt more than saw him shift around to look at her dead-on. "You have no business leading a sexless life, Carter. Come on."

"Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I don't really have time for sex, Jack," she reminded him, using the name she thought often if rarely spoke, even after all these years.

He seemed to shrug away her excuse. "You have time for coffee with me every morning. You have time to sit through crappy movies on a regular basis. Hell, you have time for lunch with me every weekday and whole days on weekends. If you wanted, you could make time for a little recreational copulation." He sounded damned proud of himself for his little spiel and Sam had to give him some credit: he'd used _copulation_ correctly.

"Would you believe that no one's interested," she tossed out as they turned onto the street where the movie rental was located. While it wasn't strictly necessary anymore to physically pick up movies, both she and Jack had gotten into the habit of stopping by, just for the experience. It was tradition and habit, something they both held on to in a world that was advancing perhaps faster than it should.

"No, I would not," he said and he was just warming up. "You are one of—no, the most beautiful woman I have ever known. You are brilliant and sexy—unbelievably sexy—and fast and tough. They don't build 'em like you, Carter, and maybe they never did. Anybody, male or female, would be glad to pull you into the nearest service elevator and show you just how interested they are."

"So why don't they?" she inquired once they were fully parked. She didn't look at him, because he'd see the flush that worked its way up her neck when he told her what he thought of her. She couldn't make eye contact with him when he got like this; he had that quiet gleam like he wanted to make her whole, to plan out her life in some meticulous, impossible fashion and see her off. Funny thing was that he always tried to see her off with everyone but him.

"Chances are they're idiots. Chances are just as good they don't think you'll look at them twice."

"They think right," she said before getting out of the car. He was only a few steps behind—she could feel him—but he should have been farther. _Damn long legs._

"Then, I guess there's no reason to complain about sex when you don't seem to miss it much."

Sam stopped just within the lobby of the store. It was a small 5 x 4 anteroom at most, but it was big enough for her to turn 'round in. She stared at him for a full thirty seconds, everything wrong with that statement on the tip of her tongue. The things she could tell him about loneliness and longing and aching for someone so intensely that her fantasies made her cry filled her to capacity. She nearly did tell him, but for the jarring jingle of a bell and a family of three hustling out of the exit past them. All the things she wanted had been in his hands, in the fists he'd kept clinched for what felt like forever now. _Now_, he worried for her.

She laughed out loud and went inside, feeling him, still feeling him, hot on her heels. He hadn't said a word to her silence and he didn't need to. He radiated a quiet something, too familiar to acknowledge or fully ignore. They'd gone full circle. From the forbidden, to the rejected, to the forbidden again. He hadn't wanted her when he could have her; it felt as though nothing had changed.

She managed to instinctively steer them to the new releases section where she snagged the last copy of the wretched film he had his heart set on. They didn't speak again until they were back inside the car, the snacks and DVD secure in his lap. When she moved to turn on the radio—even if she hated the bullshit, it was something she could stand—his hand shot out with speed that would have impressed many a young recruit to stop her.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing he said to her. His callused fingers were soft around her own softer ones and he didn't let go. "I was a jackass and, frankly, I deserve for you to drop me off at home, change the locks, and never talk to me again. I'm sorry. Okay?"

_Not okay_, she wanted to say, but she knew she wouldn't. She bought his earnest act and believed the concern in his voice. He could fake a lot, but his affection had never been false, even if it had never been what she wanted it to be.

"Yeah, okay." She was aware that she put on a terrible show; she also knew he'd never call her on it. Not while he could still obfuscate and dodge would he call her on all the avoidance tactics he'd taught her. He'd taught her so well that she went the entire drive home ignoring the fact that he hadn't let her fingers go. They were still wrapped in his, squeezed between his, stroked by his. He was reaching out in an attempt to heal what he'd hurt and all she wanted was more.

As it always was when it came to Jack, she ended up feeling like the guilty one.

Once they made it back to her place, they fell into their old roles. He locked up for the night, she set up the movie. He popped the popcorn and she poured the drinks. They found themselves sitting down at the same time on opposite ends of the couch. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and she curled hers up at her side.

They both complained aloud at the more outrageous aspects of the premise and at the boo-worthy execution of the special effects. Sam was pretty proud of the fact that she'd created a better geyser using a roll of Mentos and a half-empty liter of diet Coke than had the people producing this film—and she said as much.

Jack grinned and laid a hand on her knee. "You did better than that. You blew up a sun. Monroe's got nothin' on you."

She beamed because she couldn't help it and touched back because she couldn't _not._ Their fingers laced together seamlessly and he didn't seem to mind, eyes back on the screen as quickly as it took for one foe to fall and another to rise. She didn't miss his wistful sigh as he watched his parodied self in action, both of their counterparts actually. It was all cheap imitation but it was their life, the one they had shared with each other and the people they had come to love as more than family. The reminder would always outweigh the insult to their pride. Even if it was a reminder of how long it had been.

Three years had gone by since he'd been recalled from retirement, yet again, and she'd been reassigned from Area 51 back to the SGC. Times were a-changin' and they'd needed some heroic faces up top at Cheyenne Mountain, per the President's orders. Somebody had to convince the newbies that all the suffering was worthwhile. And just like that, the flagship command team was back. With them came the frat regs and all the things Sam had thought they'd left behind; not the least of which was loss.

In the Pegasus Galaxy, Daniel had finally encountered a death he couldn't overcome. On Dakara, Teal'c had at last met an enemy he couldn't defeat. And, right here on Earth, General Hammond had simply suffered one more exertion than his heart could stand. Of the old guard, Sam and Jack were all that remained.

But, on days like today, Sam didn't feel equal to the task. There were new enemies jockeying for position on the horizon, enemies she knew she wouldn't live to see the end of. They had to prepare a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears kids for the battle of their lives and there just wasn't enough time left to do it all. She'd spent ten years battling through the 'gate, as well as one on Atlantis, and four on the command deck of the _Hammond_. She felt the loss of time as keenly as the lost of her friends and of what might have been. She'd given it all up so that they could have a brighter future; now, it was her job to make them give it back. She didn't know how to tell those kids that in saving the world, they'd have to let it slip away until it was merely a shadow of the place where they used to live, where they used to belong. The secrets they'd have to keep would eat away at them, but no one had taught her how to tell them that.

'_These are the times that try men's souls_,' she quoted. _And sometimes devours them completely,_ she thought. They would have to decide that something was greater than themselves without truly being allowed to experience what made it great. She didn't know if they could understand anymore, if she had it in her to make them understand. She was so tired of teaching dead men walking.

She shuddered as her mind flashed through a lifetime of beautiful and grotesque corpses: family, enemies, friends, and would-be lovers; would-be happy endings. The remembered realizations that there would be no miracle those times washed over her with faded faces and regret. _They were really never coming home. _And that bubble that constituted her world grew irrevocably smaller until she could fit just this couch inside along with the girl—now woman—who they'd all loved. Sam wondered if she'd ever be able to breathe again for fear that the bubble would burst.

The rough fingers in hers gave a tight squeeze and pulled her through. Eyes on the movie, always on the movie, but a hand he could give. She clung to the lifeline he offered—it was all she had. And when the movie was over and the popcorn had gone cold, uneaten, and the drinks flat, undrunk, she had the rest of him. The back of his hand brushed her cheek and his eyes had captured hers; at that moment, he was everything in her world.

"You shouldn't be lonely, not because of me." Dragging his thumb gently along her jaw, just glancing the seam of her lip, he said, "I've held you back for years and that was something I never had a right to do." He dropped his hand and began to move away. "I won't do that anymore."

It was her turn to be faster than even she might have expected. She took back her lifeline, willfully. "You have always had more power over me than you should have and I've let you have it."

He frowned in confusion and shook his head. "But why?"

She ducked her head, suddenly ashamed after years spent coming to terms with how she felt. "Because doing anything else meant losing you and I never wanted to lose you."

"Doesn't answer my question, Sam." Her name rolled from his lips as though it was normal, typical for them. He never said her given name and she'd stopped expecting him to long ago, around the same time she'd realized that they'd never have their someday.

"I just came to the conclusion that we'd be the only two left standing and I'd rather we were standing together than apart." It wasn't a lie; it was even mostly the truth.

"That was the only option." He turned over her hand and began to draw lazy circles into her palm. "I'm not going anywhere and I'm not leaving you behind if I do."

Sam leaned against the back of the couch and reveled in his touch for just a little while longer. "That's good to know. I was worried about that."

"Indeed," he said, then tugged her toward him gently. It was a signal, one she was trying hard not to misread. He kept pulling and she kept coming toward him until he'd pulled her into his arms and tucked her into his chest. She reflexively curled up as small as she could against him in the hopes that every part of her could touch him and mold to him. She felt safer with him this close, like one reactive atom covalently bonding to another. It was stable, secure; it was for good.

"You know," he began with a ragged breath, "we've known each other for around twenty years now."

"Yeah," she replied, curious about where this was going, but just as content to never know.

"And I think, after all that time and all we've been through together, that a little honesty goes a long way."

She nodded against his shoulder, listening, yes, yet taking him in at the same time—a breath at a time.

"There was a time…Sam, when I was in love with you." He paused, seeming to gather his wits as she had to gather her courage to keep from running away. She was enjoying him, she didn't need to know all the ways he didn't love her anymore. He stroked his hand down her spine and she knew she couldn't run. "It was a long, long time. That feeling was constant through a lot of hard stuff and some great stuff, too. It held on for so long that I thought it would never _end_."

"But it did," she concluded, haltingly.

"Yeah," he replied, lacing his fingers through her hair to draw nonsensical shapes at the nape of her neck. "It changed into something else. Still strong, but not the same." His fingers stopped their dance and she prayed they'd begin again. "I would still never leave you."

She clutched at the fabric of his warm shirt and the skin underneath it. She didn't really want to hear. "But you could never love me either."

The silence stretched between as tangibly as a Goa'uld force field and she was reminded harshly of when this all began.

"I didn't say I couldn't love you or that I don't love you. I just said that my feelings had changed." He moved his finger to tangle languidly in her gold-but-silvering hair. If she was anything less than his fool, she would have learned not to shiver at his touch long ago; his short, blunt nails scraped her scalp and she whimpered instead. It was only when he pressed his lips to her temple that she trembled.

She shook herself and attempted to wrest back control of her senses. She was a Brigadier General of the United States Air Force. She was stronger than the touch of his hand or his lips. She pulled herself away and made to pick up the debris of their evening together. If she didn't have to look at him, this could be easy. He could go home and she could go back to her safe, nurturing fantasies. Tomorrow morning, they'd have coffee and maybe they'd actually go for that run they'd been planning for the last three months. It would be fine. _I'll be fine_, she told herself firmly.

Her self-help pep talk didn't last for a moment longer than it took for her to reach the sink. She broke one of the heavy glasses in the basin; it had slipped and her grip had failed her. There were no tears; and, while she didn't weep, she did begin to shake. It didn't abate when he appeared behind her, folding himself around her form and caressing sensitive, bare skin wherever he found it. She only shook harder once his lips found the tender junction of her shoulder and neck. He wouldn't stop touching her, liberally kneading his fingertips into the yearning planes of her hips and her stomach, the back of her thighs flush with the front of his.

He lifted his mouth from her skin without relinquishing his hold on her. "When I said that my feelings had changed, I meant that they'd aged with me." He rested his forehead against her crown and she felt his breath warm the back of her neck. "I'm not young anymore, Sam. Sometimes, I'm not even sure I'm still alive, but my feelings for you are absolute. The desire that used to drive me to distraction just isn't what it used to be. That burn that rushed through my veins every time you'd so much as brush against me is just…a tingle, now." He rubbed a hand down her arm until he could pry her fingers from the sink's edge. She let him since, for her, it had never dulled to less than a roar.

"Maybe I've just grown accustomed to being able to touch you whenever I wanted. Maybe I'm just an old man who's finally realized that beautiful woman in you could never want that damned soldier in me. I don't know, but I stopped hoping for someday with you, Sam, and it made all the difference."

"So, you gave up on us and fell out of love with me?" His shrug was as good as a deep breath with him so close. She couldn't begin to refute the things he'd said. She'd never noticed him growing older. In her mind, he was still the tall, lanky colonel who _liked_ women but had a thing against scientists. He remained, to her, the alpha male she had tried so valiantly to mate with while infected by the Touched virus. His eyes were still the eyes that had lied to the za'tarc detector to protect the connection they couldn't acknowledge. As far as Sam was concerned, Jack had always been Jack, even when he'd been the colonel, even when he'd become the general. She was achingly nonplussed and said as much.

"You've never been less than the sexiest man in the room to me, regardless of anyone else. I didn't care how old you were when I met you. I found you attractive, then, and I admit I was wary of you, but you showed me that you were an honorable man and that I didn't have to worry. You didn't chase every subordinate skirt that happened by and you were damned respectful when it was called for. You didn't doubt my abilities, sir, and I've always been grateful for that. Maybe that was when I really started falling hard for you." She shook her head and couldn't believe she was still trying to salvage something out of the nothing he had decided on almost a decade ago.

She heard him give an indignant hum. "_Sir_, Carter? After I've seen you pretty much naked a dozen times and watched you eat an 'enchanted' cake or two, I think we're beyond '_sir'_ now."

She was officially back at the stage where drumming her head on the countertop was not an unacceptable proposition. "Is that all you noticed? That I slipped and called you '_sir'_ for the first time in years? Nothing about the fact that today, right now, I would take you to my couch and screw you speechless if I didn't think it'd kill your back? That every night, I wake up screaming your name and they're not nightmares anymore. That you've ruined me for every other man who might even try to look _and_ touch." She shook off his proximity and shoved a hand through her hand in frustration and exhaustion. "You may not want me, _Jack_," she hissed, "but don't belittle how much I've always wanted you."

His deep, measured breathing filled her ears for lack of any louder sound to drown it out. "For a long time, Carter, it didn't feel like you wanted me at all anymore," he started. "I accepted that. I even accepted that he was younger and stronger than me." She noted that he failed to ignore her own indignant hum and that he still remembered who _he_ was long after she'd ceased to care. "Okay, maybe not stronger, but he had more time left to give you than I did. He could give you a great home, cute kids, grow old with you. He could give you the full life I couldn't." She turned slightly to see him spreading his hands in passive surrender. "Let's face it, I'm no Pete Shanahan."

To which all she could say was, "Thank god for that." His eyebrows flicked upward in surprised and he tipped his head slightly, reminiscent of a surprised but pleasantly curious puppy. She couldn't stop the smile that touched her lips just then. "I didn't marry him, because I didn't want him. I didn't marry him, because he wasn't you. He wasn't even a satisfying facsimile of you. And don't you dare pretend you don't know what the word _'facsimile'_ means."

Disregarding his fruitless declarations of ignorance, she came to him and laid her hand over his heart. It was the strongest one she knew and she noted its tempo rising at her touch. "I had hoped that maybe you'd see me as worth the effort and risk it all to tell me that you wanted me. It was within weeks of the wedding that I realized that the honor I loved in you would never let you stand between me and what you thought I wanted. So, I got out of my own way—and, I thought, yours, too."

He laid his hand over hers. "I was never all that good at reading the signs you left for me."

She pursed her lips, somewhat in humor, mostly at everything they'd lost. "I noticed that."

He brushed his thumb over her frown and it nearly faded on contact. "I'm not enough for you, Sam."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. _This had to be a dream, a crappy, crappy dream._ "I'm nearly fifty years-old. Fifty," she reminded him sternly. "I think I know what and who is enough for me. You are. You always have been." She looked up into his eyes. "You've trusted my judgment before. Please, keep trusting it. I don't know what else I can say. I want you and I have for so long that I've refused any offer that meant I couldn't be near you. The _Hammond_ was enough space-faring adventure for me. I've done everything I wanted to do, except for the plans I had that included you."

Jack continued to touch her face, tracing the growing lines that denoted her years with a deft stroke. "I had plans for us, too," he confessed, sounding slightly choked. "Some of them can't happen now."

She smiled sadly. "I have a feeling we're thinking the same thing." She touched his face, recording the dimples that denoted his smile on her mind for posterity. There'd come a time when she'd have to live without him and she wanted this sensation for the loneliest of her days. "Even though I'll never get to hold a little boy with your eyes," she touched the crinkling skin at their sides, "or see a little girl give me your smile, I'll never regret a single day I spend with you." She dropped her hand from the face she loved so much. "If you let me spend the rest of mine with you."

Her lifeline, his hands, wrapped around hers, and tugged her close again. "I guess this is the part where I come to my senses."

It was her turn to tip her head. "I hope so, because I'm all out of courage here. I still want you. Tell me you want me."

He nodded and whispered, "I want you." He backed her against the counter, seeking the same flushed and waiting skin.

"Show me," she commanded, though she'd given up the idea of ever outranking him long ago. Three stars was ambitious, even for her.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied with all the enthusiasm of a young airmen with a pretty girl in his arms.

"That's what I like to hear," she quipped and forgot everything else under the weight of his kiss. It was funny how insignificant the frat regs seemed this time around. After all the world-saving, the dying, and the almost-dying, Sam just couldn't be bothered to care. She'd given up everything she'd ever dreamed of to be a hero; she wasn't giving up anything else to be a retired one.

She didn't have another twenty years to wait for the rest of her life to start.


End file.
